If you’re thinking about where to spend your holidays in 2021, you may well be looking closer to home than usual given all the travel disruption due to the global pandemic. One option is to book walking tours in Scotland’s Highlands, and there’s one route that’s especially well known: the West Highland Way.
This 96-mile long trail recently celebrated its 40th anniversary, with the Sunday Post explaining its history and just what it took to create this stunning route into the Highlands.
The idea for the hiking trail was the brainchild of Tom Hunter, who first decided that it was necessary to create a long-distance walking trail along the eastern shore of Loch Lomond in the years just after the end of the second world war.
He believed that if something wasn’t done to protect areas of wilderness, it would get developed and would no longer be there for future generations to enjoy. It took years before work was officially started to create the West Highland Way in 1974. It was finally opened in 1980.
It became the first designated and signposted long-distance path in Scotland, paving the way for many others to follow.
As the newspaper noted, the creation of the West Highland Way has been a huge success. Around 40,000 people complete the trail end-to-end each year, while 120,000 visit it annually and enjoy parts of it too.
If you’re going to walk the whole length of the trail from its start point in Milngavie to the north of Glasgow to its conclusion in Fort William, you should allow seven to eight days of hiking.
As the Guardian recently revealed, holiday bookings in the UK are booming for 2021, so if you want to escape to a piece of undeveloped wilderness, it is certainly worth looking at what Scotland and its waymarked walking trails have to offer.